SEIU Considering Thanksgiving Eve Walkout At LAX

Will they? Won’t they? Is this another threat by a union to get what they want?

(CBS LA) Employees at Los Angeles International Airport were considering plans Friday to walk off the job ahead on what is traditionally the busiest traveling day of the year.

But, hey, they really, really care or something.

A coalition of Southland labor and community leaders are calling for the protest of alleged violations by LAX contractor Aviation Safeguards (AVSG) after breaking their contract with the airport earlier this year.

Andrew Gross-Gaitan, the director of the Southern California Airports Division of SEIU, told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO that AVSG left more than 400 LAX workers without affordable family health care when it failed to comply with the city’s Living Wage Ordinance.

As many as 1,000 airport workers and union supporters are expected to march on Century Boulevard just as an estimated 1.8 million passengers are expected to travel through LAX over the holiday weekend.

SEIU marched in March, but there were not real delays. Now, Gross-Gaitan says ““It’s entirely possible there will be significant travel delays.” And big delays at a big airport can have a ripple effect across the country, as planes arrive very late at other airports, gumming up the works.

But, hey, AVSG looks like they are super big meanies, cancelling the union contract and failing to provide affordable health insurance (read that as mostly free). It’s kinda strange, don’t you think, that the above article, like most articles on the web since this issue started almost a year ago, fail to give the AVSG side of the issue and paint the union as the aggrieved party? Let’s jump back in time, shall we?

(LA Times) Company officials said their employees voted in December to reject or decertify their collective bargaining agreement with the SEIU before its expiration date. Since then, hourly wages have improved for the vast majority of employees, they said, and workers can choose the type of healthcare plan they want.

So, the workers voted to no longer be part of a union. Their pay went up, and they can choose their health plan. Was the company supposed to tell its employees to piss off, their vote means nothing, and they must stay unionized? Interestingly, CBS LA has failed to approve my comments three time which point out that information.